Oskar Homolka - Biography

Oskar Homolka (August 12, 1898 – January 27, 1978) was an Austrian film and theatre actor. Homolka's strong accent, stocky appearance, bushy eyebrows and Slavic name (it is in fact, a Czech name) led many to believe he was Eastern European or Russian, but he was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary.

Career

After serving in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I, Homolka attended the Imperial Academy of Music and the Performing Arts in Vienna and began his career on the Austrian stage. Success there led to work in the much more prestigious German theatrical community in Munich where in 1924 he played Mortimer in the premiere of Brecht's play The Life of Edward II of England at the Munich Kammerspiele, and since 1925 in Berlin where he worked under Max Reinhardt.

Other stage plays in which Homolka performed during this period include: The first German performance of Eugene O'Neill's Emperor Jones, 1924, Anna Christie, 1924, Boubouroche, 1925, Juarez and Maximilian, 1925-26, Her Young Boyfriend, 1925, The Jewish Widow, 1925, Stir, 1925, Merimee and Courteline, 1926, Periphery, 1926, Neidhardt von Gneisenau, 1926, Dorothea Angermann, 1926-27, Revisor, 1926, by Nikolai Gogol, Androcles and the Lion, 1926, Bonaparte, 1927, The Ringer and The Squeaker by Edgar Wallace, both 1927, Underworld, 1930, Today's Sensation, 1931, The Last Equipagew, 1931, The Waterloo Bridge, 1931, Faust, 1932, Karl and Anna, Doctor's Dilemma, Pygmalion, Juno and the Peacock by Sean O'Casey, and many Shakespearean plays including: Midummmer Night's Dream, 1925, Troilus and Cresda, 1927, Richard III, King Lear, and Macbeth. After his arrival in London, he continued to star on stage, including with Flora Robson in the play Close Quarters.

His first films were Die Abenteuer eines Zehnmarkscheins (The Adventures of a Ten Mark Note, 1926), Hokuspokus (Hocuspocus, 1930), and Dreyfus (The Dreyfus Case, 1930), Zwischen Nacht und Morgen (Between Night and Morning, 1930), Geheimdienst (Intelligence, 1931), Junge Liebe (Young Love, 1931), and Nachtkalonne (Negative Column, 1932). According to Homolka's own account, he made at least thirty silent films in Germany and starred in the first talking picture ever made there. After the Nazi rise to power, Homolka moved to Britain, where he starred in the films Rhodes, Empire Builder, with Walter Huston, 1936; Everything is Thunder, with Constance Bennett, 1936; and Woman Alone, with Sylvia Sydney, which was directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Later, he was one of the many Austrian and specifically Viennese actors and theatrical people (many of them Jews) who fled Europe for the U.S.

In 1936, he again appeared opposite Sylvia Sidney in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Sabotage. Although he often played villains such as Communist spies and Soviet-bloc military officers or scientists, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of the crusty, beloved uncle in I Remember Mama (1948).

He also acted with Ingrid Bergman in Rage in Heaven, with Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch, with Ronald Reagan in Prisoner of War, and with Katharine Hepburn in The Madwoman of Chaillot. He returned to England in the mid-1960s, to play the Soviet KGB Colonel Stok in Funeral in Berlin (1966) and Billion Dollar Brain (1967), opposite Michael Caine. His last film was the Blake Edwards romantic drama The Tamarind Seed in 1974.

In 1967 Homolka was awarded the Filmband in Gold of the Deutscher Filmpreis for outstanding contributions to German cinema.

His career in television included appearances in several episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1957 and 1960.

Personal life

Homolka married four times:

• His first wife was Grete Mosheim, a Hungarian Jewish actress. They married in Berlin on June 28, 1928, but divorced in 1937. She later married Howard Gould.
• His second wife, Baroness Vally Hatvany (died 1938), was also a Hungarian actress. They married in December 1937, but she died four months later.
• In 1939, Homolka married socialite and photographer Florence Meyer (1911–1962), a daughter of The Washington Post owner, Eugene Meyer. They had two sons, Vincent and Laurence, but eventually divorced.
• His last wife was actress Joan Tetzel, whom he married in 1949. The marriage lasted until Tetzel's death in 1977.

Death

Oskar Homolka made his home in England after 1966. He died of pneumonia in Sussex, England on January 27, 1978, just three months after the death of his fourth wife, actress Joan Tetzel. He was 79 years old. Both he and his last wife, Joan Tetzel are buried in Christ Church Churchyard, Fairwarp, East Sussex, England. Their monument there is notable in having a pair of theatrical masks carved into the surface.

Selected filmography

<references/>

External links

• Photographs of Oskar Homolka
• Oskar Homolka on Filmreference.com